Dr. Cathy Murphy
University of South Carolina

Synthesis, Assembly and Reactivity of Metallic Nanorods

ABSTRACT:

Metallic nanorods are of great current interest for their electronic and optical properties.  Our research group has developed a relatively cheap and green method for making silver and gold nanoparticles of controlled size and shape, using aqueous solutions at room temperature.  Insights in the crystal growth process are proceeding from high-resolution TEM and single-area electron diffraction data.  The nature of the surface is key to future applications; surface chemistry can be used to link nanorods in organized arrays, or immobilize them on surfaces.  Chemical sensing and optical imaging applications of gold nanorods will be discussed.

Biography:

Catherine Murphy obtained her B.S. degree from the University of Illinois-Urbana in 1986 and her Ph.D. in 1990 from the University of Wisconsin (Madison) where she worked under the direction of Arthur Ellis.  She performed postdoctoral research in the lab of Jacqueline Barton at the California Institute of Technology, first as an NSF postdoctoral fellow and subsequently as an NIH postdoctoral fellow, before joining the faculty in the Department of Chemistry at the University of South Carolina in 1993.  She has received a number of awards including the NSF CAREER Award, the Cottrell Scholar Award and the Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Award; she was a Sloan Fellow from 1997-1999.  She serves as a Senior Editor of the Journal of Physical Chemistry and on the Editorial Advisory Boards of several other journals, including Chemistry of Materials and Nano Letters.  Her research interests are focused on the creation and exploitation of metal and semiconductor nanomaterials for optical sensing.